By Jared Sugerman
The women’s hockey team ended its winter break early, returning to campus to host Yale (7-7; 3-4 Eastern College Athletic Association) Friday.
After losing to the Bulldogs 2-0, the Huskies traveled to Providence, where they were defeated by Brown (3-10-1; 2-5-0 ECAC), 2-1 Saturday.
Now, with the new semester about to begin, Northeastern may be facing its greatest test of the season as the Huskies only have two wins in their last nine games.
“It’s a test of your character when things go poorly,” said head coach Dave Flint. “Do you start blaming other people? Do you start pointing the finger? Do you start blaming systems? They’ve just got to basically gut it out, get through it and keep working hard.”
The Huskies (7-8-2, 4-4-0 Hockey East) are currently ranked sixth out of eight teams in Hockey East. Only the top four teams in the conference qualify for the playoffs.
“You want to win as many games as you can, but our real focus is also Hockey East games and making the tournament,” Flint said. “That’s been our major goal since day one. I think our team really believes if we get into the tournament, we have the goaltending that can win you a championship.”
Sophomore goalie Leah Sulyma played against Yale and Brown, stopping 30 Bulldogs’ shots and making another 11 saves versus the Bears. Her goals against average and saves percentage are now 1.86 and .930, respectively.
Northeastern peppered Brown’s Nicole Stock with 28 shots Saturday, the most since the Huskies fired 28 shots at Wayne State’s Delayne Brian Nov. 15. On Friday they mustered 22 shots against Yale’s Jackee Snikeris.
“We’re generating a lot more chances, we’re just scoring less,” said Flint, whose team has now scored 30 goals on the season, which is the fewest in Hockey East. “Part of that is the power play has been stagnant and we’ve got to find a way to get that going, but we’re doing good things. We’re making things happen, so it’ll fall into place. I’m not overly concerned.”
Things might have fallen into place Saturday, but Northeastern had an apparent goal called back on what Flint called a “questionable” hand-pass call.
“The puck was in the air. I think [Colleen] Sanborn went to swat at it,” Flint said. “It looked like it hit off of her shoulder and went right to one of our players who knocked it into the net.”
However, the officials ruled that Sanborn was guilty of an illegal hand-pass.
” [If it did go off her hand or arm] and then to our player, and if that’s the case, then it’s not a hand pass, but there’s not much we can do about it now,” said Flint, who also said he had yet to see the video replay.
The Huskies’ only goal of the night was scored by freshman defender Stephanie Gavronsky.
Northeastern’s next game is 7 p.m. Thursday at Boston University (9-5-5, 3-2-3 Hockey East). They return home to play Niagara (4-13-2; 1-3 Continental Hockey Association), Jan. 10 and Jan. 11.
